Erin Kitchell

Managing Director for Land, Environment, and Climate, Namati

Erin Kitchell is the Managing Director for Land, Environment, and Climate at Namati. She leads on strategy and learning for grassroots environmental justice initiatives that support communities to know, use, and shape the law. She is currently building out programs related to tenure rights, community-led conservation, and carbon markets. Erin has more than 15 years of experience leading research and supporting community-based work on land rights and environmental governance in the U.S., Africa, and Asia. She has a PhD in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

María Camila Villegas Piedrahita

Executive Director, Fundación Grupo Argos

She holds a Master’s degree in Sustainable International Development and a specialization in Environmental Conservation and Social Justice from Brandeis University in the United States. She has more than 20 years of experience designing sustainability strategies and developing social and environmental projects in Colombia and several Latin American countries — initiatives that are now benchmarks in Colombia and have earned international recognition. She also has an extensive track record at Grupo Empresarial Argos, where she has held sustainability roles and led several of the Group’s foundations, driving the consolidation and scaling of initiatives that have advanced the organization’s highest goals in international sustainability standards, climate change, natural capital conservation, and shared value creation. In a role of particular strategic significance, she led the formation of Sembrando Futuro, Grupo Empresarial Argos’ carbon project focused on ecological restoration — a strategic bet by the Group to advance nature-based climate solutions in Colombia.\

Tracey Osborne

Founder and Director, Carbon Justice Standard Lab

Tracey Osborne is the Founder and Director of the Carbon Justice Standard Lab and an Associate Professor at the University of California, Merced, with over two decades of experience working on climate change mitigation in tropical forests, carbon markets, climate finance, and climate justice. Her research and practice focus on the social, ecological, and political economic dimensions of forest-based climate solutions, with particular attention to Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Through the Carbon Justice Standard Lab, she and her team are developing a framework for high-integrity, community-led carbon projects that centers community leadership, governance, and equitable benefit-sharing.

Raymond Achu Samndong

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager, International Land and Forest Tenure Facility

Raymond Achu Samndong is the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager at the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility in Stockholm. He has extensive experience in land and forest governance, Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ tenure rights, climate change, and land use interventions. Raymond holds a PhD in International Environment and Development Studies from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. His work bridges research, policy, and practice, with particular expertise in the Congo Basin, and focuses on strengthening evidence and learning to advance Indigenous and local community land rights and territorial governance.

MODERATOR

Annie Thompson

Head of Community Partnerships and Land Strategy, Terraformation

Annie Thompson is Head of Community Partnerships & Land Strategy at Terraformation, where she advances the principle that people closest to the forest should lead its stewardship. She leads work on land tenure, FPIC, community governance, benefit-sharing, livelihoods and social safeguards across Terraformation’s native, biodiverse restoration projects. Annie brings 15 years of experience in land governance, community development and natural resource management across Africa, Latin America and Asia, including managing more than $200 million in U.S. government investments. Previously, she worked at the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation and the Rights and Resources Initiative.